By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
Chanting students staged a sit-in at the Rutgers Board of Governors meeting after President Robert Barchi offered to protect unauthorized immigrant students, but refused to officially designate the university a “Sanctuary Campus.”
Thais Marques came here from Brazil when she was 5 years old and she’s deeply worried.
“Your students are urging you to use this label. Your fear of using the sanctuary label is not as big as the fear that I feel as an undocumented person in this country right now. I urge you to come out and support that no matter what Donald Trump says you will continue to support DACA for people like me,” she said.
Last month, more than 1,000 students and faculty marched through campus, in reaction to Trump’s election and his promise to deport unauthorized immigrants. A group called Movimiento Cosecha helped develop a petition, requesting the administration specifically declare Rutgers a “sanctuary.” They requested it protect IDs of undocumented students, prevent their detention and deportation by ICE and bar immigration agents from physically accessing campus. Professors today turned out to rally.
“We have a couple hundred — maybe more — undocumented students at Rutgers and we’re very concerned for their welfare. We’d like more such students to enroll at Rutgers in this application season, so we are looking for Rutgers to really underscore it is a sanctuary campus,” said David Hughes, president of the Rutgers Council of AAUP chapters.
Barchi acknowledged the concerns and reassured the campus community today that the school would be a safe haven for students.
“We have taken the route of calling this a Safe Haven and then specifically defining all the things we will do to protect our students, to maintain their privacy and their rights and to prevent the actions we don’t want to see take place,” he said.
But Barchi would not use the politically-fraught word “sanctuary” perhaps because Trump has threatened to withhold federal aid from so-called sanctuary cities — not that a legal definition of “sanctuary” exists. But Princeton, for example, now calls itself a “welcoming community” that operates within the law, though it’s widely regarded as a sanctuary city.
“Rather than simply using a label, we are using definitions of what we will do and what we will not do,” Barchi said.
The professors’ union indicated they can live without the label. But the students here could not.
“You’ve reaffirmed that we are all here together, representing Rutgers, affirming Rutgers and that sanctuary is what we are,” Hughes said.
“I want an answer from my university and I want an answer now,” Marques said.
Barchi declined. Students then peacefully “occupied” the meeting, which continued even as they shouted slogans. The board finished its consent agenda and adjourned.
The students say Barchi still has not satisfied their demands. They want Rutgers to be officially declared a Sanctuary Campus, and they will continue protesting until it is.